Second Passport vs Residency: Which Do You Actually Need?
A framework for the most expensive decision in global mobility
I hear the same question every week:
“Should I get a second passport or get a residency?”
And there is no universal answer to that question.
But most of all, the question itself is not the right one.
The right one is:
Do I actually need a passport right now? Or do I need somewhere to go?
A passport is citizenship, consular protection, and a permanent tie to a country.
A residency is permission to live somewhere.
It gives you a tax home and a place to build a life.
But it is not as permanent as a passport (although in some cases it can be).
So the first take-away for you should be to be clear on the question you are asking.
Do you need a passport right now? Or do you just need “a place to go”?
Let’s look at this more closely.
The Core Distinction
Think about what happens when you have a passport somewhere.
As a citizen you can leave for a decade and come back in whenever you want.
Now think about residency.
You live there and pay taxes, but you’re not a citizen.
You are more like a “guest” with good paperwork.
And if you stop following the rules, or the government changes its mind, that permission can disappear.
So passports sound better, right?
Not always.
Say you get a Caribbean passport.
Dominica, St. Kitts, Antigua. Great travel document. You can visit 150+ countries without a visa.
But are you going to live there? Probably not.
You have a travel document, but you don’t have a place.
Now say you get residency in Malta instead.
You live in Valetta and you have the freedom to travel the whole Schengen zone.
And after some years, you might naturalize and get the passport anyway.
Takeaway: A passport is not automatically “better” than a residency. It all depends on what you are trying to achieve with it.
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Ben, What Exactly Do You Mean By “Residency”?
A reader asked me this two weeks ago, and I realized I never explained this in simple terms.
Honestly, even I get tripped up occasionally, because countries use different words for similar things.
Here’s the simplest version.
A visa gets you in.
Permission to enter and stay for a set time.
Could be 90 days as a tourist.
Could be a year on a digital nomad visa.
When it expires, you leave or “convert” the visa to something else.
A residence permit is permission to stay.
Living there, sometimes paying taxes there, sometimes working there (depending on the specifics).
In many countries, the process starts with a visa to enter, then a residence permit application once arrived.
Portugal works this way.
So does Spain.
A passport means citizenship.
The most permanent and difficult (or expensive) to get.
Now here’s where it gets messy.
“Golden Visa” sounds like a visa, but actually works more like a residence permit.
A Remote Work Visa let’s you stay for years in some cases.
Doesn’t this sound more like “permission to stay” than “getting in”?
I know, it can be very confusing.
So let me give you my way of thinking, which hopefully clears this up a little.
First of all: Don’t get hung up on terminology.
If it helps, you can think of all of them as “programs” that let you stay somewhere.
And those “programs” have different requirements, rights, obligations and benefits.
Whether you end up with a visa sticker in your passport, or a residency card in your hand, doesn’t matter as much, as what it actually solves for you.
Takeaway: Don’t get hung up on terminology. Visa, residency, the wording doesn’t matter as much as what it solves for you.
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Five Problems, Five Answers
This hopefully alleviated some confusion.
Now, let’s look at passport vs. residency (or “program”) again.
The right program depends on what you’re solving for.
Here’s how I think about it.